Anders Sandberg <asa@nada.kth.se> wrote:
> Skye Howard <skyezacharia@yahoo.com> writes:> > > It strikes me outright that in order to figure the> > validity of such a civilisation's abilities I> might> > have to go on a great deal of grave digging for> > proof.... of course, the signs of uploading from a> > civilisation advanced enough to do time travel> might> > be hard to spot.> > Actually, time travel is likely not the best way to> do it. In the> proposals I have seen, the idea is instead to gather> as much> information as possible about the present state of> the universe, and> then extrapolate backwards. This leads to the> problem about> uncertainty; essentially known historical facts and> evidence will act> as boundary conditions on history, but there will be> uncertainties> about a lot of things. One way of dealing with this> if you have a> *lot* of computing power (and now we are talking> about converting most> of the universe into computronium) is to simulate> *all* possible> histories. Once this is done, you can "upload"> (rather, copy from the> simulation) all people who have ever lived - or> *might* have lived.> > > Then again, there are other matters to be> > considered. For example, who would be a likely> target> > for uploading?> > In the above scenario, there is no particular reason> not to upload> everybody. The computing power necessary to run a> few hundred billion> uploads is much smaller than the history simulation.> Sure, everybody> wants to meet Leonardo da Vinci, but in order to get> him we need his> completely mediocre nephew in the simulation too.> > > > -- >> Anders Sandberg > Towards Ascension!> asa@nada.kth.se > http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa/> GCS/M/S/O d++ -p+ c++++ !l u+ e++ m++ s+/+ n--- h+/*> f+ g+ w++ t+ r+ !y>